Roland Perry wrote:

Surely better to close the suburban platforms altogether at weekends,
and give people a shorter walk.

But it will be a shorter walk when the new concourse opens, it'll be closer
than going over bridges and down escalators onto the main-line platforms!

On Mar 19, 11:51 am, Roland Perry wrote:

Presumably there will be capacity in the current suburban trainshed, once
vacated by outer suburban services.

There is capacity today, even before displacing the outer suburbans!

I'm sorry? capacity for another six tph into Kings Cross? There's
already too much sharing of platforms 9-11 by two separate services,
GNER don't want their turnaround time cut and they're introducing an
extra Leeds service. If you squeezed in the Moorgate services too
there'd be absolutely no margin for error of any kind.

On Mar 19, 12:30 pm, Roland Perry wrote:

Surely better to close the suburban platforms altogether at weekends,
and give people a shorter walk.

One thing that amazes me is that, whereas the Germans et al allocate
platform numbers for the whole year, in Britain we make it up day by
day. It would be great in the evenings to know that Cambridge fasts
are always on say pl. 8, Peterboroughs on 7 - and why Hull Trains
can't have a designated platform (like say Heathrow Express) I don't
know.

TimB wrote:

One thing that amazes me is that, whereas the Germans et al allocate
platform numbers for the whole year, in Britain we make it up day by
day.

It's because the Germans are so terrified of a train being late that they
allocate about 5 minutes of what we call "Charter Time" between every single
pair of stations.

In message , at 12:46:22 on
Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Jack Taylor remarked:
Surely better to close the suburban platforms altogether at weekends,
and give people a shorter walk.

But it will be a shorter walk when the new concourse opens, it'll be closer
than going over bridges and down escalators onto the main-line platforms!

Depends where you are starting from. Surely most of the passengers
arrive either by road at the front of the station, or by tube (which is
also at the front of the station). The only direction that the suburban
platforms are closer is St Pancras.
--
Roland Perry

In message .com, at
06:16:27 on Mon, 19 Mar 2007, TimB remarked:
Presumably there will be capacity in the current suburban trainshed, once
vacated by outer suburban services.

There is capacity today, even before displacing the outer suburbans!

I'm sorry? capacity for another six tph into Kings Cross? There's
already too much sharing of platforms 9-11 by two separate services,
GNER don't want their turnaround time cut and they're introducing an
extra Leeds service. If you squeezed in the Moorgate services too
there'd be absolutely no margin for error of any kind.

All I'm saying is that the trains manage to squeeze into KX today, even
at the weekend with the Moorgate services.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:

Depends where you are starting from. Surely most of the passengers
arrive either by road at the front of the station, or by tube (which
is also at the front of the station). The only direction that the
suburban platforms are closer is St Pancras.

Yes - *currently*. We are talking about the future, when the new main
concourse is built between the GN hotel and the suburban platforms, the new
LUL northern concourse is open, adjacent to it, and the current "temporary"
mess at the front of KX has been demolished and landscaped. The main route
then will be through the new LUL concourse (of from adjacent taxi points)
into the new mainline concourse. Very little traffic will use the existing
entrance/exit at the front of the station, mainly foot passengers exiting to
Euston Road/Pentonville Road/Grays Inn Road or those using that entrance to
LUL. All travellers arriving at King's Cross will be funneled through the
new west side entrance, so the suburban platforms (the only ones for which
access will be "on the level" from the new ticket office) will actually be
far more accessible than the mainline platforms, for which it will be
necessary to go up to the waiting area on the first floor, then across the
new footbridge in the centre of the station and down to platform level using
either escalators or lifts.

In message , at 14:52:06 on
Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Jack Taylor remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:

Depends where you are starting from. Surely most of the passengers
arrive either by road at the front of the station, or by tube (which
is also at the front of the station). The only direction that the
suburban platforms are closer is St Pancras.

Yes - *currently*. We are talking about the future, when the new main
concourse is built between the GN hotel and the suburban platforms, the new
LUL northern concourse is open, adjacent to it, and the current "temporary"
mess at the front of KX has been demolished and landscaped. The main route
then will be through the new LUL concourse (of from adjacent taxi points)
into the new mainline concourse.

I am sceptical about this new concourse. The Circle line is under the
main road, so all you are altering is where people climb up to the
surface. I can't see why taking people a hundred yards further north to
start with helps very much.

Similarly, the escalators for the deep tube lines stretch pretty much
parallel to the main road, from a point at the front of the station
towards KX Thameslink, and the tube platforms "point" that way too.
Taking people from the deep tube lines via this new concourse is also a
long way round.

Very little traffic will use the existing
entrance/exit at the front of the station, mainly foot passengers exiting to
Euston Road/Pentonville Road/Grays Inn Road or those using that entrance to
LUL. All travellers arriving at King's Cross will be funneled through the
new west side entrance, so the suburban platforms (the only ones for which
access will be "on the level" from the new ticket office) will actually be
far more accessible than the mainline platforms, for which it will be
necessary to go up to the waiting area on the first floor, then across the
new footbridge in the centre of the station and down to platform level using
either escalators or lifts.

What a nightmare! Having used the station and studied the plans in
passing, none of that was particularly obvious.
--
Roland Perry

On 19 Mar, 13:16, "TimB" wrote:
Presumably there will be capacity in the current suburban trainshed, once
vacated by outer suburban services.

There is capacity today, even before displacing the outer suburbans!

I'm sorry? capacity for another six tph into Kings Cross? There's
already too much sharing of platforms 9-11 by two separate services,
GNER don't want their turnaround time cut and they're introducing an
extra Leeds service. If you squeezed in the Moorgate services too
there'd be absolutely no margin for error of any kind.

I think there may be some confusion-due-to-judicious-snipping taking
place.

There is capacity at present to use KX as the sole London ECML
terminus at weekends. We know this, because it's what happens every
weekend.

However, there is not capacity to run all ECML trains into KX during
the weekday peaks, which is (one of the reasons) why some of them run
into Moorgate instead.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

In article ,
(Jack Taylor) wrote:

Roland Perry wrote:

Depends where you are starting from. Surely most of the passengers
arrive either by road at the front of the station, or by tube
(which is also at the front of the station). The only direction
that the suburban platforms are closer is St Pancras.

Yes - *currently*. We are talking about the future, when the new
main concourse is built between the GN hotel and the suburban
platforms, the new LUL northern concourse is open, adjacent to it,
and the current "temporary" mess at the front of KX has been
demolished and landscaped. The main route then will be through the
new LUL concourse (of from adjacent taxi points) into the new
mainline concourse. Very little traffic will use the existing
entrance/exit at the front of the station, mainly foot passengers
exiting to Euston Road/Pentonville Road/Grays Inn Road or those
using that entrance to LUL. All travellers arriving at King's Cross
will be funneled through the new west side entrance, so the
suburban platforms (the only ones for which access will be "on the
level" from the new ticket office) will actually be far more
accessible than the mainline platforms, for which it will be
necessary to go up to the waiting area on the first floor, then
across the new footbridge in the centre of the station and down to
platform level using either escalators or lifts.

What about cyclists?! This is what I've been asking about and haven't
been getting intelligent answers.

--
Colin Rosenstiel